Andriy & Albina’s Frontline Diary. Day 6

Day 6

Andrii and I were recording street interviews in Kramatorsk, asking people what they think about the so-called “peace” negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, proposals that suggest handing over occupied territories to enemy control. As soon as we arrived in the city center, a warning came through local channels: “A guided bomb heading toward Kramatorsk” – and the sirens started to wail.

We continued our interviews in one of the courtyards, next to a pizzeria destroyed by a Russian missile. There, we met 24-year-old Artem, a father of two (a boy Sasha, 2.5 years old, and a girl Masha, 5 years old). Artem has cancer, but when his health allows, he works at a car repair shop.

“The map of Ukraine that has existed since 1991 should stay that way. I still don’t understand how they took Crimea — they just came, raised their flag, and that was it,” Artem said. As he spoke, the bomb could be heard flying overhead. We quickly called over five children playing nearby and ran to shelter by a building entrance. The bomb hit another part of the city. The kids hugged each other and soon went back to playing. All except Artem’s younger son. The boy pressed himself against the wall.

“It’s booming,” he said, standing still for several more minutes until Artem convinced him to join the other children, promising to call him if anything else flew over. The boy hesitated, then ran across the road, looked back, and said again: “It’s booming…”

“My daughter, when she was younger, was also terrified, always covering her ears when she heard any loud sound,” Artem said.

We waited for the air raid alert to end and left to prepare for an evening shoot at the border guard stabilization point.

There, under a clear sky, we waited for incoming wounded. Two lightly injured soldiers were brought in. We remained outside beneath the stars.

“Andrii, look — yesterday the Big Dipper was above us here in the grove, and now it’s still there.”

“We’re still in the grove — it’s all an illusion,” Andrii laughed.

Day 5

“Good morning,” says a sleepy voice behind Andrii and me in the dugout. It’s a soldier from the 72nd Brigade, the “Black Zaporozhians”, with whom we’re working today on a front line where the Russians are attempting to break through into the Dnipropetrovsk region.

“Good morning! What’s your name?” Andrii asks.

“Roma.”

“We just ran in here to hide from a drone,” I decide to continue the conversation.

“That’s normal,” Roma tells us. “That’s our daily life. We run from drones every time too—after all, we want to live.”

Throughout the day, at the position of the 2nd artillery battery, we ran multiple times—not once, not twice, not even ten times. The glide bombs alone hit within a few kilometers at least ten times, and enemy artillery had been firing nonstop since dawn.

Most people who haven’t been to the front might see our day as trench romanticism. We ate Easter cake with hot tea, each choosing their tea from a beautifully colored box. We warmed ourselves under the eastern sun in a grove with barely green young trees, smiled at each other in photos, and slept together on one big bed in the dugout under shelling.

Roman says, “People say that we soldiers have nothing out here on the positions, that we’re just surviving. But we’re not surviving—we’re living.” And finishing the thought, he continues to treat everyone with the Easter cake his family from the Kyiv region had sent.

We were fortunate to work with an American-model gun at this position, capturing the launch of eight American shells and documenting the work of this truly motivated and friendly five-person battery. We were lucky—not just to witness the smoke columns from the bomb hits—but also to see a rainbow among the spring blossoms in the grove. And we sincerely hope we’ll be lucky enough to leave here by night and find our vehicle still intact, which we went on the way to the position after transferring to a military vehicle.

After 11 p.m., we drove out under the stars and the Russian illumination flares. The car was intact.

Day 4

Despite the war, spring has arrived in Donbas. In places where no intact buildings remain, tulips have bloomed. Where enemy shelling struck churches, fruit trees are blossoming. Along the lines of defense, fresh grass pushes through the soil.

“War is more beautiful in spring,” Andrii jokes as he jumps out of the car to photograph smoke rising behind Sviatohirsk from incoming shells. Of course, war is not beautiful. What’s beautiful are the people you meet here. There is no beauty in the air raid sirens, the explosions, or the shattered domes of a once-sacred church. Not even in the sweeping horizons of Donetsk region, where battle-scarred shelterbelts, now held by Russian forces, stretch across the view.

While Andrii was taking photos, I got a call from the press officer of one of the brigades operating in the Pokrovsk direction.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“We’re ready.”

Now we’ll see what war looks like from the perspective of artillerymen, just 10 kilometers from the enemy. We head out at 2 a.m.

Day 3

For more than a year, I’ve carried a patch from Azov’s Carpet-Knights on my bag — a small, green emblem I received for helping fundraise for a Humvee. That patch isn’t something you can buy. It’s handed out personally by members of the Carpet-Knights group, a fact recognized only within the Azov community. When we met this morning, a soldier from Azov’s press service, who was accompanying us to the medics of the evacuation crew, noticed it right away. Fighters from the regiment respect its meaning, and it helps open the door to more trusting conversations.

By midday, with the endless sound of explosions in the background, we had a deep conversation with the medics about the second stage of evacuation. They compared their previous work in the Toretsk direction with current operations near Pokrovsk. Conditions have worsened. One of the toughest evacuations lasted a whole week. They managed to save 12 wounded, but they lost their vehicle. That’s why they can’t take us with them — every trip is high-risk and too dangerous.

A friend named ‘Chuha’, who also serves with Azov and is currently stationed near Toretsk, had encouraged me to work with Azov’s teams in the Pokrovsk area. I hadn’t seen him in four years, not since our university days. As it turned out, he had a few days off in Kramatorsk, and after our interview with the evacuation crew, we invited him out for coffee. He had six hours left before returning to the front.

That morning, I had already told Andriy about ‘Chuha’, the friend who survived a direct hit from a guided aerial bomb without a scratch. But now he heard the full story directly from the soldier himself:

“Last year, we were fighting in Terny. There came a moment when I thought I wouldn’t make it out. I told myself that if I did, I’d definitely get married. One day, we were at our position, and a bomb hit. Two guys were killed, and another was seriously injured. I was lying there thinking I’d broken my spine and that I’d never see the girl I liked again. Then I noticed one of my hands was tingling. I thought, “Okay, I can feel one hand — that’s something.” Then the rest of my limbs started tingling one by one. My comrades dug me out from under the concrete rubble, and I just stood up and walked away. I was completely uninjured, just had ringing in my ears. Three days later, I asked that girl out, and three months later we got married. I consider that my biggest accomplishment in the war. And if we have kids, that’ll be perfect,” said ‘Chuha’ over coffee before heading back to the front near Toretsk.

Our work with Azov isn’t over. We still plan to visit a stabilization point for the wounded and the hospital where their medics remain on duty.

Day 2

“Ukrainian journalists are being blessed so they can speak the truth to the people,” Father Maryan tells Andriy and me around 9 a.m. at one of the border guard command posts. He’s only been serving with the Luhansk Border Guard Unit for two months, but today he’s on a special mission: blessing Easter cakes and sausages for frontline units near Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Lyman, and Kramatorsk.

At every stop, we asked soldiers about the so-called “Easter truce.” They all replied the same — orders from command: no comment. Still, some confided that five Russian drones had already struck just one of the positions earlier that morning. We heard distant blasts across the city ourselves. Once again, the “truce” felt like nothing but another manipulation by the enemy. Maybe today’s strategy was simply no guided bombs — just drones.

As we neared Kostiantynivka, border guards told us drones had already reached the city. Andriy was last there in summer 2024, I — in 2023. We both remembered it full of people, a kind of rear stronghold where everyone regrouped after the front lines. Now, it’s a place you rush through, no lingering, no tempting fate. We were lucky — we managed to bless the Easter cake there twice. I messaged a special unit commander I’d once met there. For a moment, I stared out the window, lost in thought… until a passing military convoy pulled me back. Andriy handed me the camera: “Take a photo.”

“Take a picture of me” — it was something we heard at almost every stop. This time, it came from an energetic soldier with the call sign ‘Angel.’ He stood straight at the center of his squad, like he was posing for a passport photo. “Where should I look? And is there any Cahor wine?” he joked — a line everyone seemed to say today. We didn’t spend long with ‘Angel’, and we’ll probably never know if that was really his call sign. But after nine hours of driving around the Donetsk region, we sat in the kitchen, reviewing photos, remembering him.

— That ‘Angel’ guy was something else. You could tell the commander really looks after him, — Andriy said.
— I feel like there’s a deep bond between them.
— Like father and son.
— And that kid clearly gets things done.
— It’s part of his fire, his energy, — we added, looking at his photo.

Andriy peered out the window:
— You think the guided bombs will start at midnight? The ‘truce’ will be over…
— We’ll know in ten minutes.

00:07 — the silence broke. A distant rumble of explosions echoed outside..

Day 1

Tomorrow marks Easter, and Andriy and I are set to celebrate it in the Donetsk region. I spent the entire night traveling by train from Khmelnytskyi to Kyiv, carefully carrying my mother’s traditional Easter bread, known as ‘paska’, to have it blessed alongside servicemen. Today, it spent the entire day in a car on the way to Kramatorsk.

Unfortunately, the glaze on the paska has chipped slightly. Somewhere past Poltava, I delicately covered the damaged spots with silver confectionery beads. Andriy remarks that they resemble the metal pellets used in explosive drone munitions. I carve the letter ‘F’ out of a piece candied melon, symbolizing ‘Frontliner’ out of a piece of candied melon.

As we finish decorating the paska, we receive the news: tomorrow, we will bless it with the Luhansk Border Guard Unit, which has granted us permission. Over the past few days, we reached out to ten different brigades, hoping to coordinate the Easter blessing, but this year, some of them either lacked a chaplain or were hesitant to host gatherings.

We record a video message for the border guards: “I am placing into this paska a wish for strong energy and inner strength — so that no one who tastes it ever loses hope.”

Authors: Andriy Dubchak & Albina Karman

Read more: